Picking up the thread, A Dare Options

[McGonagall's Cat]

<title- Lavender First Picks Up The Thread>


As Lavender Brown walked down the steps to the Common Room from the Girls Dorm She noticed

(\__/)
(=’-‘=)
(“) (“)
Crookshanks

playing with a piece of thread. He seemed to have found the begining end of the thread on the steps and was rolling around, tangling it into a snarled up knot. With one swat it hurled into the Common Room, where he playfully attacked it again.

Lavender was going to breakfast and not particularly interested in the thread, until it wrapped around her ankle as she tried to walk over to her best friend Parvati Patil who was sitting near the fire waiting for her.

"What is that?" Parvati asked as Lavender untangled her foot.

"I don't know what's going on with it. I just noticed Hermione's cat playing with it on the steps over there." She answered pointing toward the stairs.

Parvati picked it up, noticing that it ran out of the room through the Portrait Hole. Since Crookshanks had lost interest and was now sitting on the rug near the fire licking his paw, she began to wrap the loose thread around and around the knot, forming a tiny ball.
She and Lavender followed the thread along, through the opening, down the hallway, wrapping the thread around the small ball as they went. They chattered on about having been invited to Trelawney's room for a private reading later that day.

"I can hardly wait!" giggled Lavender. "I just know she's going to tell me that cute Ravenclaw boy is destined to be in my future!"

"Well, I'm hoping to learn how many puppies my Mum's dog will have when she has her pups next week!" Parvati said enthusiastically.

As they turned the corner, still giggling and planning for their "private tea", the thread lead them to the top of one of the moving stairways. As they stepped onto it, it began to move. Parvati shreiked, almost losing her balance with the lurch, and the small ball of thread went flying through the air to






OK, here is the challenge: You have to pick up the thread, whoever you are, follow it a while through some interesting rooms/places/situations, and hand it off to (another character)...

who then picks up the thread and continues to wind it around and around into a ball as they continue through some interesting rooms/places/situations, and hands it off to (another character)...

who then picks up the thread and continues to wind it around and around into a ball as they continue through some interesting rooms/places/situations, and hands it off to (another character)...


The same character can pick it up again later... They can do many amazing things while it is in their possession... we can each write as many scenes as we care to write...


Go ahead! I DARE YA!!!

Through January 18th, 2004. 
Vote for favourite scene Jan. 19, 20, & 21 - so be sure to TITLE your scene to make it easier for all of us to vote for the intended one!
edited 1/18/04   This is now on-going       No time limit.

[Quantamus]

The Forbidden Forest and back again


Fortunately for Harry, he wouldn't be the only one late for Potions Class today. The Potions Master himself would not turn up for several hours....

After rousing some minutes later and groping for his wand (whose light long gone out), Snape, being closer to the bottom of the tunnel than to the top, made the rest of the way down, suspicious about where the tunnel led to. He had no doubt that Potter had been using this very tunnel to escape Hogwarts after hours.

So Snape, teeth gritted against the ear-splitting headache that now had made his brain its home, made his way down the tunnel, found himself in Honeydukes, clambered out with many sneering apologies to the owner (who was understandably most upset), and quickly made his way back to Hogwarts. It was there that he came across the very same offending ball of thread that had begun all this nonsense in the first place.

He stood staring at it for a moment, eyebrows twitching in anger, fangs bared as though to eat the water soaked ball.

"ARGGH!"

Despite his growing hatred for the ball of thread (that galling headache had spread to his teeth), Snape found his desire to punish (the responsible student) overwhelming. With a violent kick at the grass, he snatched up the ball and began to follow its path once again.

Around Hagrid's Hut he went, around the Whomping Willow (much to his chagrin), up and down several branches of the old oak tree (he had quite a task keeping his skirts together), and then towards the clump of trees that was the gateway to the Forbidden Forest.

Of course, being a Professor (and rather knowledgeable about the Dark Arts besides), he was not afraid and continued right through. In and out, between the trees, Snape went. He stumbled and fell several times, stubbing his nose on some very painfully hard rocks.

"Potter," Snape muttered, as he picked himself up for the twelfth time, "Potter did this."

Of course, Harry couldn't have done it. He was busy waiting with the other students in the Potions dungeon. But Snape had a headache and his nose was hurting tremendously, so I'm afraid we must forgive his bias-driven oversight this time.

Snape went on deeper and deeper, rolling up the ball of thread as he went along. He walked, it seemed, for several hours, when suddenly, the thread led him to a large, empty clearing. He paused at the edge of it. His nose jerked and flared a number of times; it was picking up a strange, beastly, stale smell. It was only a subtle smell, but as he stepped deeper into the clearing, it invaded his nose and mouth, filling his head and consuming him.

He dropped the ball of thread and grabbed his head instead, moaning in pain, and as he did so, several large dark creatures emerged from the trees, and it was only when he opened his watering eyes once more that he realized that the towering creatures were there. His heart froze: he, like Ron Weasley, was terrified of spiders, and these gigantic ones seemed happy to make a meal of him.

Snape screamed very loudly. He turned and ran back out of the Forest, across the Hogwarts grounds, and into the castle, screaming all the way. He ran screaming past Dumbledore, who looked at him from over his half-moon glasses in curiosity. He ran screeching past Sprout and Flitwick, not noticing their worried expressions. He screamed past McGonagall ("My, my, Severus!"), Moody ("Something in your underwear, Snape?"), and Trelawny ("I foresee certain death..."). He streaked through the Great Hall, blessing the students (it was about lunch time) with his dulcet tones. His hair whipped about behind him, grease splattering on the golden plates and goblets. His eyes were wide and white in fear. His robes had unbuttoned to reveal his pink underdress. He was foaming at the mouth. And still he continued to scream and run, until he had run through every hall and room in Hogwarts and finally, exhausted, he dropped to the floor (of unknown room) and fell asleep.


Meanwhile, in the Forbidden Forest, a ball of thread lay unattended. The spiders, recognizing it as a useless imitation of their own product, had abandoned it. And there it lay, until it was picked up by...